Justified Sinners
by Faye-Morgan
Summary: Schuldig's feeling for a certain Amercian are getting harder to deny, but are they returned?


Another week, another 5000 word essay, this time on alienation in European literature (yay for these thrilling titles), due in tomorrow. At least this one's in English, not German. It still hasn't helped me conquer "first paragraph block" so here I am, writing more bile-filled, angsty Schwarz thoughts. This time it's going to be mostly a Crawford/Schuldig piece. They are my favourite pairing, after all. Also: bad language and general raging anger and hatred against the world. But hey, I'm gearing myself up to write about alienation … who else was I going to choose?  
  
Justified Sinners: Part One.  
  
Schuldig:  
  
The music's too loud to hear anything the slut that's clinging to side is saying. Not that it really matters, it's not her brains I'm interested in. I smile at her seductively and make sure the alcohol keeps flowing. I make sure I'm caught staring at her mostly uncovered (and in my opinion surgically enhanced) chests just enough to make the silly cow think I'm interested. I'm not of course. Despite my act, there isn't anyone in this club, or even Japan who I actually want to fuck. Except maybe one, but I'll get to that later.  
  
That's right. I don't actually want to sleep with anyone. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't. I've fucked my way through most of Japan. And don't even get me started on Europe. My last bed fell apart from all the notches in it. Why do I? Simple, you'd be amazed to know how many people are fucked up about sex. They're ashamed of their bodies, they feel worthless, they like the pain and the shame they feel while having meaningless fucks. It's not a form of pleasure to them, but self-punishment. Of course, they don't admit it to anyone, not even themselves, but you can't hide from a telepath. So I play up to it, and leave knowing they'll be back in the bars again, come evening. Masking their problems behind their protective shields of alcohol, drugs and wantonness. Pathetic: but so human.  
  
The blonde beside me shifts again, rubbing her breasts across my chest in a desperate ploy for attention. All of a sudden I'm sick of this. My tolerance for this pointless little charade has evaporated and I push her away with ill-concealed annoyance. She pouts at me in surprise, and the smirk I toss in her direction quickly becomes a sneer of contempt. I get to my feet and grab my coat. As the saying goes, fuck this for a game of soldiers. Tonight, I'm not playing.  
  
There's enough alcohol in my system to feed on my rapidly darkening mood, causing my sneer to go more twisted with every step I take towards the exit of this little den of depravity. I elbow people aside as they get in my way, revelling in the snippy insults and abuse that's directed towards my retreating back. Once outside, I pause to light up a cigarette and draw as much of the cancer-causing smoke into my lungs as possible before releasing it in a long slow breath guaranteed to knock a few more minutes off my miserable little existence. Yeah sure the things will you, but as only five percent of the world's population think that death is the end, it's not much of a deterrent. I expel another lungful and grin into the night air as I sing quietly under my breath "You bring me closer to God". It's one way to look at it in any case.  
  
I decide I'm still sober enough to drive competently and am soon back at the apartment. The lights are off, which seems to imply that my flatmates are all asleep or out killing somewhere. If it's the latter, I'll be really annoyed. I'm really in the mood to kill someone right now. It seems to surprise people; that I'm this sadistic, unrepentant killer, not least those who know that I can read minds. That assumption never fails to make me laugh. It's -because- I can read minds that I'm a sadistic, unrepentant killer. Telepathy tends to inspire hatred and disgust for your fellow man, not sympathy. I've heard it described as a gift, and they're not wrong. But it's not how they think, I mean in the German sense: ein Gift. A poison in your mind that corrodes and rots.  
  
I saunter inside and reach out to flick the kitchen lights on, only to have them blink into illumination a fraction before my hand touches the switch. I squint, unaccustomed to the sudden brightness, until my eyes adjust and I see our noble leader standing at the other end of the kitchen. Shit. And he doesn't look happy. Double shit. That'll teach me to enter the place without making a mental sweep first. Not that it would have done any good. There is only one person who I've ever encounter with impenetrable shields and he's the one standing in front of me, glaring at me with narrowed eyes.  
  
I move my body into a more relaxed slouch and left a casual grin drift across my face. "Waiting up for me, Crawford? I'm touched."  
  
I wait for some sharp retort, but he doesn't say anything, just continues to stand there and glare at me. I feel my cocky grin start to fade and snort to myself, my more common sneer reappearing. "Whatever you want to ride my case about can wait 'til the morning. I'm going to bed now." I glance over at him, at his expressionless face and pause for a moment, toying with the idea of trying to get beneath that icy surface before brushing past him. Who am I kidding? I can't read the bastard. That's half the problem.  
  
I make my way to my room and collapse face down on my bed without bothering to even remove my jacket. It just all seems like too much effort all of a sudden. I groan into the pillow. My life officially sucks. No, not even that. It bites.  
  
As I've mentioned before, being a telepath tends to destroy any faith in mankind. You see other people's thoughts and you realise there's nothing worth your attention in there. Petty, spiteful thoughts, self-delusions maintained by their pathetically inflated egos and lies. The only reason they surround themselves with other people is their own deep-seated fear that perhaps they are the only ones faking, that maybe everyone else is really as virtuous, as interesting and pleasant as they appear. It's all lies. Self-maintained disguises everyone hides behind because no one has the guts to act how they really are, to do what they really want to. Well fuck them, because I do. And I'm despised for it. I sleep around, and they think I'm a slut because I don't bother to delude myself that it means something. I drink and do drugs and they call me a hedonist when I know that anything that numbs my awareness of those around me is something to be savoured. I'm not a good person. I'm not interested in the well being of my fellow man, but at least I'm honest. I can see into everyone around me and in every person I see exactly the same thing. And it sickens me. How could I not despise them all, when they're all shallow, ignorant, two-faced liars? It should come as no surprise then, that I'm so willing to kill as many of the boring fuckers as possible.  
  
Well, maybe I'm not that honest. Because there is one person out there who I can't read: Crawford, our illustrious leader. His mind is a frustrating blank to me. And I think that's why I love him. Because at the end of day, even I need my delusions. I need someone to project my hopes on, someone to look up to and admire. And it sure as hell can't be anyone I can read, so I'm stuck with him. Hooray for me, I'm in love with an iceman.  
  
I shift on the bed and try to stop my thoughts, but they're firmly fixed on the American. On his hazel eyes, flecked with gold that gaze at me without the slightest hint of what's going on behind them. On his dark hair, which looks so soft and silky, but I'll never get the chance to run my hands through. On that body, which he insists on hiding behind those boring business suits all the time, but you can still make out the toned, lean lines of it as he moves. I groan again, but my heart really isn't in it. Maybe there is still some shred of humanity deep inside my black and twisted heart, maybe there is some part of me that just hasn't been disillusioned and disappointed enough.  
  
Or maybe at the end of the day, I'm just as big an idiot as everyone else.  
  
TBC  
  
Das Gift: Poison. (Known when you're learning German as a 'false friend', i.e. something that can really screw up your oral exams. The amount of kids in my class who used to blather on about the poisons they received for Christmas …  
  
So read and review, Crawford's POV up next. Maybe even tonight if inspiration still fails to strike. 


End file.
